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My WordPress 3.0+ multi-site domain mapping with GoDaddy

I had absolutely no fun setting up domain mapping with my WordPress 3.0+ multi-site enabled site. I did a million things before it worked. Here’s what seems to be the final configuration that worked for me. This is provided pretty much so I can remember how to do this in future, and perhaps it will help you too.

My main site is http://gmichaelguy.com and I wanted http://gmichaelguy.com/adamandmichael to be mapped to the domain http://adamandmichael.com I have a Deluxe hosting account on GoDaddy with gmichaelguy.com as the primary domain.

Create a new site on your WordPress multi-site enabled install. For me this was called adamandmichael

Follow the instructions in the plugin. This means uploading two files and editing the wp-config file to make a sunrise.

Configure your GoDaddy account. This is the part where everyone online had something different to say. This is what worked for me. If it doesn’t work for you, please do something else.

Open your GoDaddy Hosting Dashboard. Here’s what mine looks like.

My GoDaddy Hosting Dashboard

Click on the Domains button in the top center of the Hosting Dashboard. Now add the secondary domain to your hosting account (this isn’t how you buy the domain. You have to do that before this.) Set it to have the same root folder as your main account (My WordPress is installed in this same folder).

Domain Manager

I think this is all that was required on the GoDaddy site. But as I mentioned, I did a million things before this worked, and so some others thing I did might have actually been changed. I’m including here a listing of the DNS Records that are accessible under “Settings–>DNS Manager” in the Hosting Dashboard in the event something here needs to be changed manually.

Hosting Dashboard DNS Manager link

Look at the DNS Settings for both my primary and secondary domain name. Note they BOTH have an A-record matching the IP Address shown in my Hosting Dashboard. The wonderful @andrea_r was concerned that this IP address was NOT the one she was seeing in the lookup she was doing for my domain. This was indeed the correct IP address to use (and not the one @andrea_r was seeing. GoDaddy confirmed this for me as well).

Primary Domain Zone File

Secondary Domain Zone File

Now go to your WordPress dashboard and map the domain using the installed plugin. Here’s what my dashboard looked like.

WordPress Dashboard

Then I took a shower, shaved, went for a walk, had lunch and came home. When I made it home, it all worked. Before I stopped to shower, none of it worked, and I was annoyed as hell. Perhaps it just needed time for all the DNS settings and such to propagate throughout the Internets.

I hope what I wrote here is helpful. If it’s not, sorry. Contact @andrea_r on twitter, send her lots of money and appreciation, and perhaps she can help better than this did! If you didn’t purchase her plugin as I suggested in Step 2, please consider donating money to her using the donation button on her website at http://wpmututorials.com/. She is helping you indirectly since she helped me, and this helped you!

This post is closed to comments because I really don’t have anything more to say or to offer. Good luck!